Bedrock

"Following the 2024 US Presidential election, ISD (Institute for Strategic Dialogue) researchers Isabelle F. & Moustafa Ayad found a surge of harassment and misogynistic vitriol directed at women, with many calling for restrictions on women’s rights. Between November 4 and 6, ISD researchers tracked the hateful language across X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Facebook and Reddit, Inc. and found an alarming increase across all platforms. This included terms like “your body, my choice” and “get back in the kitchen” experiencing a 4,600% increase in mentions on X, along with calls to repeal 19th Amendment spreading across social media. This trend has also seemingly found its way offline with some reports of women and girls being harassed in similar ways at schools and universities. While this language was prevalent prior to the election, Donald Trump’s victory appears to have further emboldened "manosphere" influencers and extremist ideologues." https://lnkd.in/gXDqQ6mC

What’s one thing everyone can do right now to ensure a safe and fair election? Follow credible messengers. Stay calm. And don’t let the anxiety take over. Bedrock’s Ryan G. explains:

Thank you to bipartisan leaders ensuring us that violence is not normal and will not be tolerated https://lnkd.in/eSbVSN88

Is misinformation as "virus" just a simple analogy? No! Misinformation literally spreads like a virus on social media, including during election season (with superspreaders like Elon Musk) - and we explain how we use models from epidemiology to evidence this empirical fact as well as how such models can simulate potential solutions such as debunking and psychological inoculation. https://lnkd.in/eXmaC373 New with the brilliant David Robert Grimes in The Conversation UK

As we exercise our right to vote, let’s not forget to choose respect and understanding. 💬 We’re stronger together, no matter the outcome. 🌿 #AllWeShare #IChooseUs

“Be the thermostat, not the thermometer.”

📆 JOIN US! Nov 7th at 5:30pm (EST) HARNESSING OUR POWER TO END POLITICAL VIOLENCE In order to realize the possibility of an inclusive, multi-racial democracy, we'll need to organize well beyond Election Day. Join others who oppose political violence to assess the post-election landscape, awaken imagination about how to effectively respond to political violence, and plan strategic nonviolent actions to make political violence backfire. In this workshop, we'll explore a tried and true framework for responding to political violence in ways that impose social, political, and economic costs on perpetrators, while supporting and strengthening those who are targeted. We'll also build connections and plan backfire strategies based on the scenarios our communities and campaigns are facing in this post-election period and beyond. Register with the link in the comments. Maria J. Stephan Tabatha Pilgrim Thompson Nilanka Seneviratne Julia Roig Jarvis Williams Scot Nakagawa Jiva Manske Democracy Fund Humanity United THE JPB FOUNDATION Ford Foundation W.K. Kellogg Foundation

In the run up to the 2024 US election, conspiracy-laden fears on post-election violence have spread across X, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube — with some cases leading to overt calls for violence. ISD researchers analyzed narratives that claimed or insinuated that the US government plans to target its citizens and found they are inciting citizens to stock up on weapons and essentials. These narratives feed into the dangerous expectation of civil unrest in the post-election period. Despite all the platforms assessed having policies prohibiting content that may incite violence, the posts remain up For example, misleading content about a Department of Defense directive received 24 million impressions across YouTube, X and TikTok — demonstrating just how wide these narratives are spreading. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/dNQVge5m

💡 And now for something totally different. And especially relevant given there's a POTUS election tomorrow. ✨ A short while ago, in a lifetime far far away, I worked at Google exploring technological solutions to combat online falsehoods. Most solutions in this space are inherently unscalable. Malicious actors lie faster than truthtellers can issue corrections, and regardless, people don't always agree on what is actually true. We wanted to know -- were there solutions that got around these limitations? 🤓 Well, yes! The two most promising solutions our team incubated were called "accuracy prompts" and "inoculations". The former is simply a reminder built natively into the UX of online platforms to consider accuracy when sharing information online. The latter is a series of bite sized trainings & tips for spotting some of the most common manipulation techniques used online. 🧐 Both had been shown to decrease online harms in the wild, but there was an open question about whether inoculation alone could prevent the spread of factually inaccurate information absent an explicit call to focus on accuracy. The catch was that manipulation techniques can be present amongst true information, as well. What to do? ⚡ Combine them! When accuracy prompts were combined with inoculations, we saw inoculations begin to help people discern truth from falsehood, suggesting there is synergy between common online UX designs. Read more in our hot off the press Nature article: https://lnkd.in/gzSW5rds Shoutout to David Rand, Gordon Pennycook, Adam Berinsky, and Beth Goldberg for being the best co-authors anyone could ask for!

Beware false narratives around the election - take a look at Anti-Defamation League's debunking of some of the common conspiracy theories https://lnkd.in/dDajm-md